


Coming Back

by irisbleufic



Series: The Ground Beneath My Feet [3]
Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Queer Character, Communication, Disability, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Idiots in Love, M/M, Multi, Partially Deceased Syndrome, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Recovery, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:59:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a variety of things happen, including Walker family Christmas, Kieren and Simon trying to get more than a day to themselves (and failing), Tom Russo attempting to get his head around what's happening to his PDS patients, Shirley and Philip being complete bad-asses, Frankie Kirby expanding her philosophical horizons, Dean Halton providing an eccentric one-man background chorus, and Jem just being her delightful self.</p><p>
  <span class="small">[Third in a sequence, but can be read as a stand-alone; follows <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2398187"><b>Shatter</b></a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2433971"><b>Wear Your Rue</b></a>.]</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Back

**Author's Note:**

> This slots into [**The Ground Beneath My Feet**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/161747), which is both a series and not; every piece in it can be read as a stand-alone, but strung together, they have continuity. You can read [**_Shatter_**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2398187), skip over [**_Wear Your Rue_**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2433971), and hop straight to this story if you like (although _WYR_ is important from a Kieren-Jem perspective, as well as from a Simon-and-Walkers perspective).

Christmas Eve has arrived in the guise of an overcast Tuesday morning, which in part accounts for the two half-consumed mugs of tea on the coffee table that Kieren's mum had _insisted_ on purchasing for Simon when they'd made a run to the Warrington IKEA on Sunday.  The other part is gradual, suspicious re-acclimation to consuming foodstuffs, but bugger _that_ for a lark.

" _Ouch_ ," Kieren mutters, recoiling from the impact of his left pinkie toe against one of the mugs' handles as Simon flips him onto his back.  "I told you, we've got to push the table further out—"

"That hurt you?" asks Simon, breathlessly, his expression stuck somewhere between annoyed that he's not kissing Kieren anymore and concerned over this new development.  "How much?"

"Not much?  A little.  I'm _fine_ ," Kieren insists, hauling Simon back on top of him, because it's doing nobody any favors the way Simon had sat up and started glaring reproachfully at the mugs.

Simply put, their bodies are changing.  It's not as if the signs hadn't been there, what with the hand-tremors both of them had been experiencing for a while.  The rest of it's less than pleasant; Kieren would call what Simon had experienced forty-eight hours before a nose-bleed, but he's still not sure if the stuff in their veins is even _properly_ blood.  Whatever it is, it's thinning.

"Come back to me, Kier," says Simon, his lube-slick hand tight and perfect on Kieren's cock.  "Don't tell me I'll have to take you to the surgery early.  Your appointment's not till eleven."

"And yours is eleven-thirty," Kieren pants, pushing into the touch, kissing Simon hungrily.  "Mum expects us at the house straight after, says she's got some fairy lights that need hanging."

Sex is getting more interesting, too.  In the first week of sharing Simon's bed, he'd got used to the game of will-there-be-a-mess-this-time-or-won't-there, but in the past five days or so, there _has_ been consistent need for clean-up.  They're enjoying this too much to let it unnerve them; they keep ruining clothes, but with the return of heightened sensation, they're gluttons for punishment.

That said, they've begun to take precautions.  Like right now, for example: they're rutting naked on the sofa with one of Amy's faded old Scarborough beach towels spread under them.

"Still talking your head off," Simon murmurs against Kieren's mouth, drawing back to kiss Kieren's scarred forearms on either side of his head before dipping to suck just above Kieren's collarbone.  "If you can do that, then I ain't doin' this justice now, am I?" he asks.

Kieren lets his fingers slide through Simon's hair, sliding his arms over Simon's shoulders till he can wrap them tight around Simon's neck.  It only takes hooking one leg tight across the backs of Simon's thighs to get Simon to let go of Kieren's cock; Simon presses down, his full weight against Kieren now, close and needy.  They don't stay hard enough for anything more complicated, but why they'd _need_ anything more complicated at this stage is beyond Kieren.

"That's more like it," Simon sighs, nuzzling the spot he's doubtless sucked purple.  " _Lovely_."

Some quintessentially English turns of phrase become raging turn- _ons_ when they trip off Simon's unapologetically Irish tongue.  Kieren reckons hearing Simon say _you'll_ _forget your head next_ to Denise at the surgery ought not to've had him both angry _and_ aroused _,_ but there'd been nothing for it.  Turns out _lovely_ is a scorcher, because Kieren jerks helplessly at that, starting to tremble.

"There you are," murmurs Simon, working one hand beneath the small of Kieren's back to brace him, coaxing him to thrust harder.  "Sweet Kieren," he says, almost too softly, but _that_ does it.

" _Fuck_!Fucking _hell_ , Simon.  _Shit_ ," Kieren moans, not even caring what anyone beyond the curtain-covered windows might hear; he's coming and it's _amazing_ , better than usual, better than having proper tea again.  He's breathing through wave after wave of sensation, shuddering hard.

As Kieren squirms out from under Simon just thirty seconds later and shakily gets down on his knees, Simon is wearing the most dazed expression Kieren has ever seen on him in the time they've known each other.  It's an inconsiderate use of the tea napkins, maybe, mopping at the trickle on his belly even while he's busy leaning forward and guiding Simon's cock into his mouth with his other hand, but whatever; Kieren's always been adept at multi-tasking. 

Simon's breath hitches.  "You're beautiful," he says, cupping Kieren's admittedly occupied jaw with both hands before fanning his long fingers up through Kieren's hair.  "And—here I am, an old man by comparison.  Christ, will you even—even find me, how'd you put it before, _attractive_ when this is all over?  Amy always said death looked smashing on me, but . . . "

Kieren doesn't respond, doesn't even dignify that with pulling off, and just looks at him.  _How dare you say such a thing_ , he thinks as their eyes lock, _when I'm making it quite clear that there's no place I'd rather be than here on this floor with your cock in my mouth, thank you_ very _much?_

He doesn't stop sucking, doesn't even make a sound, and Simon comes with a shameless groan.

"I'm sorry," Simon murmurs ten minutes later; by then, Kieren has got them both cleaned up and Simon's curled up sideways on the sofa with his head in Kieren's lap while Kieren drinks what's left of his tea.  "I shouldn't have said that; I'm lucky you haven't run.  Forgive me, I shouldn't—"

"Simon, shut it," Kieren sighs, fondly stroking Simon's hair.  "Drink your tea so we can shower."

They reach the surgery at five after eleven, which doesn't endear them to the temp who's filling in for Denise while she's in hospital.  It's just as well, Kieren thinks, letting his heel drum against the leg of his chair, because Simon's wearing that content, dopey expression he gets when Kieren lets him hold his hand (and Kieren likes looking at it).  He wants to kiss Simon, wants to see the stand-in receptionist's scandalized expression when he does, but there's a sudden cry beyond the double doors and down the hall.  It's a young voice, plaintive and stark.

" _Ow_!  I just think—Doctor Russo, _isn't_ Nurse Wilson here?  She can, _um_ —I'd much rather—"

Kieren's on his feet, dragging his hand away from Simon, and pushing open the doors before he knows it.  The receptionist protests, but Kieren calls over his shoulder, "He says it's my turn!"

Simon makes a perplexed noise, but it recedes when Frankie Kirby's voice rises a second time.  Kieren's past the doors now, letting them swing shut behind him, made certain by Simon's abrupt silence that he's correctly identified the person in distress.  The PDS-specific exam room door is ajar, as so often it is, so he pushes it open and finds himself the object of two startled gazes.

Tom lowers the syringe and says, "Kieren!  So sorry we're running over, won't be a moment."

Frankie's fair, wavy hair is loose, falling into her wide white eyes.  She's bent forward, limbs tense, awaiting the second injection attempt like a girl gallows-bound.  She frowns at Kieren.

"You've got the angle wrong," Kieren says, crossing to the exam table, holding out his hand for the syringe.  Tom is so surprised that he hands it over, stepping aside so Kieren can set a hand on the girl's shoulder to steady her.  "It's all right, you're fine," he says gently, and Frankie closes her eyes, breathing out.  Kieren hadn't known her beyond the fact she'd been in Jem's year at school when she died; through the haze of his erstwhile depression, he remembers the discovery of her body had made local news.  Scarcely three weeks later, in those same woods, he'd gone.

"It makes me sick now," says Frankie, quietly, "so Mum's been giving me less.  Those people at Amy's place were good at it," she adds, glancing hopefully up at Kieren.  "Can _you_ —?"

Kieren re-angles the gun against her injection site, adjusting the dosage.  "Half as much?"

"A third," she sighs as Kieren pulls the trigger; it's over before the sound dies on her lips.

"There you are," says Tom, with forced cheer, "Thanks to Kieren, you're on your way."

Frankie straightens her collar and gives him a baleful, disappointed glare as she leaves.

"Where's Shirley?" Kieren asks, taking a seat in the chair beside Tom's desk before Tom can invite him.  "Some of us are more sensitive than others.  She ought to be here for the ones—"

"Haven't you heard?" says Tom, tapping keys to bring up Kieren's record.  "She and Philip left for Norfolk two days ago.  They're seeing the paperwork served, and they've joined the protest."

"The police inquiry?" Kieren asks, relieved to think that the disturbance and outright _robbing_ of Amy's grave hasn't been let to fall by the wayside as Henry Lonsdale's disappearance had been.  He feels a sudden, guilty stab of panic that he and Simon aren't there at the Wilsons' side.

"We'll see what comes of it," Tom agrees.  "My hope is that nobody gets hurt.  These situations can turn ugly.  Let's see—you're in for a check-up after the post- _fête_ fuss, aren't you?"

"No side effects," Kieren says.  "There's none of the Blue left in my system.  Simon would've recognized the signs; he's seen them enough in others.  With the NT Plus, just so you know—we've had to lower our doses, too, by about half.  Either it _is_ stronger, or something's wrong."

"We don't know what was happening to Amy when she died," says Tom, steadily.  "Without sound evidence or guidance from the top, I'm hesitant to recommend anything radical."

"Then _listen_ to us, for fuck's sake," admonishes Simon, looming in the doorway.  "In lieu of those crackpots at Halperin and Weston, we're the best research team you've got.  Jesus."

Tom swallows and nods, turning his head.  "Good morning, Simon," he says.  "Come in."

The three of them talk through the matter of dosage for a while, after which Tom checks Kieren's stitches and Simon's staples and shines his ophthalmoscope light in both their eyes.  They're well into Simon's time-slot now, and Tom seems to have lost much of his usual composure.

"Listen," he says as Kieren and Simon get to their feet, "I don't know where to start, and that's the truth.  I'm short-handed without Shirley, I can't deny it, and Kieren—you were brilliant."

Simon gives him a questioning look, and Kieren mimes injecting a patient.  "Thanks," he tells Tom, letting his hand drop again, "but it's nothing.  I taught my dad how to do it when I was less than a week home from the Centre.  It stings too much of you don't get the angle right."

"Would you consider helping us here after the holidays?" Tom ventures, his tone apologetic.

"Sorry, but the Scheme's been disbanded," Simon tells him, shrugging.  "How's your temp?"

"She only knows the desk," Tom tells Simon, and then looks back at Kieren.  "I mean to say that we'd be paying you.  _Both_ of you," he adds, gesturing to Simon.  "I'm . . . _we're_ sorry, it's . . . "

For an instant, Kieren's back where he was on the night he'd let Gary haul Freddie Preston away.  He's sick and sad and _tired_ of this, of the living and their excuses, and all he can think of is the violence Frankie has endured at every turn.  He's vaguely aware that Simon is watching him now, watching down to the twitch of his fingers and the tap of his foot.  He's moving, moving _constantly_ ; they're both restless, drawing breath more often, _terrified_ they might find . . .

"We'll think about it," Kieren tells him, and leaves it at that.  "Happy Christmas, Tom."

Simon nods, apparently satisfied with Kieren's decision, and puts an arm around Kieren to lead him out.  Doctor Russo doesn't follow them, and Kieren's surprised to find Frankie and her mother seated in the waiting area.  They get to their feet when Kieren and Simon enter.

"You've been such a help," says Helen Kirby, and only then does Kieren realize she's probably been crying since she came to collect her daughter.  "All of the terrible things I've said to poor Francesca about you lot staying down at the Dyer place—now I wish I _hadn't_."

"Mum, stop," says Frankie, clearly embarrassed, and hangs on her arm.  "It's okay."

"You may have been right to say what you said about us before," Simon mutters, and Kieren knows he's thinking of Zoe and Brian and the rest of the rabble, wherever they've scattered.

"It _is_ okay," Kieren tells Helen, accepting her outstretched hand.  "We've got work to do."

 

 

*

 

 

In a moment of dismayed hilarity, Simon can't help but wonder how he's gone from purpose-driven Disciple of the Undead Prophet to love-struck consort of the _inexplicably_ astounding Kieren Walker in right around a month.  He can't move for the multiple strings of fairy lights dangling from his outstretched arms while Jem makes sense of them.

"We’re shite at this, in case you haven't noticed," Jem sighs, working another knot free of the rainbow-colored strand.  "Most years, Mum doesn't know which way is up and Dad just tries to steer clear.  It was tough without Kieren for a while," she adds, glancing over at the tree.

Case in point, then: Kieren is a regular holiday-decorations prodigy.  Simon watches Sue hand Kieren ornament after ornament while Steve sits extracting them from dusty tissue-paper and newsprint.  Kieren hangs each one with confident precision; Simon doesn't see him shift a previously-placed piece even _once_.  He pauses when he realizes Simon's been staring.

"He looks about ready to eat you up, gorgeous," Jem says teasingly to Kieren, and finally relieves Simon of the rainbow lights so he can let his left arm drop.  "How 'bout them stars?"

"You better not have phrased stuff like that on your English exam," Sue says disapprovingly. 

"They look wonderful, sweetheart," she tells Kieren, touching one of the handmade ornaments proudly.  "He did one for every year in primary school.  You could see his talent even then."

"At my school it was angels," says Simon, uncertain as to why he's seen fit to open his mouth on the subject, what with the family-related trauma he's shut away.  "Mine were never up to snuff, though.  Your budding Van Gogh here would've laughed."

"Now, that's not true," says Steve, handing another of the glitter-and-colored-glue masterpieces to his son.  "You were always helping the other kids with their projects, weren't you, Kier?"

"I stopped after a while," says Kieren, deadpan.  "Once it was clear they didn't want it."

Simon looks to Jem, partly for verification and partly out of concern.  "S'true," she says, lowering her voice, pretending she's intent upon unsnarling the strand of white lights, indicating that Simon should let it slide off his right arm and help her.  "He's the kindest person you'll ever meet, so you can imagine that's why . . . why seeing him like that during the Rising was so difficult.  He'd come home from school bruised up now and again because he'd defended someone."  She shakes her head, voice dropping to a whisper.  "I've been _awful_ to him."

"You're forgiven," Simon tells her, catching the knowing nod Kieren gives him from behind Jem's back.  "You have been since the moment he returned.  He's remarkable, your brother."

"I think we fight because we didn't get to grow up, not properly," Jem says, spooling through the strand now that they've sorted it, and it's the kind of moment in which Simon can see the woman she'll become.  "I mean, who else can claim they survived an apocalypse and still _talk_ about it?"

"More of us than I'd have guessed," Simon replies, helping her tow lights to the nearest window.  "We're the lucky ones, and don't forget it.  No matter what we've done, we're the blessed."

Jem gives him a coy glance from beneath her lashes.  "At first I thought the mystical bollocks were just an act," she tells him, "but those drugs fried your brain in the good way, didn't they?"

"Hey, Jem," says Kieren, rising on tip-toe to hang a swirled-glass globe.  "Stop being nosy."

"For your information, I'm not _being nosy_ ," Jem replies, reaching for the roll of electrical tape that Simon has supplied from the chaotic mess at their feet.  "Your boyfriend and I are having a genuine bonding experience.  Just wait till I have Dad break out the old home videos."

"You're official, then?" says Steve, his eyes fixed on Simon, and the other shoe drops.

"We're—" Simon pauses, and he swears the memory of what it's like to have your heart skip a beat is fiercer than ever.  The room has fallen ominously silent.  "Wait, we're what?"

"Official," Steve prompts, keeping his tone light, but his concern is obvious.  "Dating, like."

" _That's_ being nosy, Kieren," says Jem, glancing over at her brother.  "The more you know."

"That's rude, love, is what it is," says Sue, whacking Steve's arm with the wodge of newspaper she's got in one hand.  "Don't rush them, for heaven's sake.  They've been through a lot."

"I'm just concerned, is all," says Steve, and Simon recognizes the mild belligerence of a man who considers himself continually outnumbered.  "You've got bills on that place to worry about now it's yours, and you haven't exactly got a job.  And what when Kieren's up and quit _his_ —"

"Dad, it was Pearl I had to put up with," Kieren interjects angrily.  " _Pearl_.  Who shot Simon and, on the night I walked out, almost shot _me_.  I couldn't have worked at the Legion indefinitely.  I'm not cut out for pulling pints anyway.  It was a means to an end, and I didn't even get to reap the benefits.  The money I _didn't_ lose on train and airfare's still in my account."

"I have money," says Simon.  "Some of it's mine, and some of it's what Amy left, but the point is, I _have_ it.  I won't be evicted tomorrow.  We've—" _Jesus Christ, Kieren_ , he thinks, _the things I'll do in your name_ "—had an offer of work in the surgery.  After the holidays."

Steve nods, apparently satisfied.  "You should take it," he says sternly to Kieren.  "No more lazing about or—or running off in the dead of night.  Maybe you ought to help Simon sell that house and the two of you can move in here.  Your Mum and I wouldn't mind having you."

"Oh _Christ_ , Dad," Jem groans.  "The _melodrama_.  They're grown-ups, you know.  Let it be."

Simon swallows and looks to Kieren, nodding toward the door, and hopes he'll take it not as _let's get out of here_ but as _remember that talk we had a few nights ago?_   Kieren chews his lower lip for a second and then steps away from the tree, tucking both hands in his pockets.

"The thing is," he says, unflinching, holding Steve's gaze, "I'm moving into the bungalow."

"Like father, like son," mutters Jem, despairingly.  "God _help_ us, Mum.  There'll be a row."

"Jemima, that's enough of your tongue," Sue tells her, although she looks less composed than she sounds.  "As for _that_ , it's sudden, true, but might be good for you both," she says to Kieren.

"Will you look at that," Steve says, throwing up his hands.  "From dating to living together in five seconds flat.  I'm telling you, things move too fast these days.  When I met your mum—"

"It's quite the story," Kieren cuts in, gesturing for another ornament.  "Some other time, Dad."

"So you've gone and told Kier, but not me?" Jem says, taping another segment of the lights into place.  " _Unbelievable_ , this family!  Is that how it was for you, Simon?  Always last to know?"

Simon picks up the tape under the guise of tearing off pieces for Jem to have at the ready, but the truth of the matter is that his head's spinning, and he'd like nothing so much as to sit down in a dark room with his knees up and his arms folded to hide his face.  It's too close, this, too soon and too much, but he knows he'll have to push through if he has any hope of this _working_.

"Simon," says Kieren, soothingly, and steps over several piles of debris just to reach him.

Simon hadn't been expecting this, Kieren sure and measured and confident as he kisses Simon in front of his whole family.  It's like that time in the street again, only Kieren doesn't pull away and stroll on; Simon holds him close, and he stays, his sock-covered toes touching Simon's own.

"You don't have to answer," Kieren tells him as they part, shooting Jem a look.  "That _is_ nosy."

"Kier," says Jem, eyes glassy and anxious, raising one hand to brush her upper lip.  "What's . . . "

Simon spots the dark smear beneath Kieren's nostrils before his parents do, keeps an iron grip on Kieren's arms so that his back stays to them.  "Let's get some water," he says, tugging Kieren through the dining room and into the kitchen, but he can't stop Jem from following them.

"Oh my God," she says, watching in horror while Kieren stands with his eyes shut, breathing hard, letting Simon mop at his face with a dampened paper towel.  "Is he . . . is he going . . . "

" _No_ ," says Simon, firmly, and then fills the nearest glass in the dish rack, tilting it up to Kieren's lips.  "It's the same thing that was happening to Amy right before the incident, and it's also happening to me.  We're not sure what it means, except that certain bodily functions are coming back, turning on again.  It's the opposite of going rabid, Jem.  We need less medicine now."

"This girl at school was saying that the day before break," says Jem.  "I didn't believe her."

"Was it Frankie?" Kieren asks, taking over for Simon in the pinching-paper-towel-over-his-nose department.  "We know it's happening to her, too, so I wouldn't be surprised.  Might be all of us."

"Coming back to life," says Jem, slowly.  "You mean Amy had just come back and that bitch _stabbed_ her?"  Simon watches the thread of this atrocity entangle with another as her face crumples; she collapses against the work-top with a sob.  "Oh God, Kier, I'm no better.  _I'm_ —"

"There'll be none of this," announces Sue, marching into the kitchen, and she is _livid_.  "Keep your trauma for the therapist, put it right out of your head," she instructs, wrapping Jem in her arms; her eyes pass over the blackened paper towel Kieren's still holding to his nose.  "Don't tell your father," she says firmly, stroking Jem's hair.  "He doesn't need that, Kier, not right now."

"He does, Sue," says Simon, and what's _with_ his stupid mouth running on and on today without his permission?  He kisses Kieren's forehead, lets go of him, and heads back out.  "I'll tell him."

 

 

*

 

 

Nose-bleed or no nose-bleed, once they're on the way back to the bungalow after finishing decorations and enduring the most awkward family meal since the one with Gary, Kieren's pretty sure what he'd like to do with the rest of his evening is snog Simon senseless.  They're not halfway down Amy's street, _their_ street, and already stuck into it with enthusiasm.  Simon's teeth catch cleverly at Kieren's lower lip, drawing a whimper out of him as they stagger along.

"Oi, get a _room_!" someone shouts from across the way; Kieren recognizes the voice as Dean's and has just enough presence of mind to extend one hand in his general direction for purposes of flipping him off.  Simon doesn't stop kissing Kieren, but laughs into his mouth.  "Joking!" Dean shouts back, and there's a sloshing sound like he's got a drink.  "Happy Christmas to you, too!"

They're almost to the back stairs now, so Simon breaks reluctantly away to fish the bungalow keys out of his back pocket.  He smiles sheepishly, tossing them into the air as he takes Kieren's hand, and leans in for another kiss as they approach the break in the hedge.

A loud, startled sniffle interrupts them, and Kieren blinks dazedly at the stairs. 

Frankie Kirby sits on the top one with her knees drawn up, her bare face streaked with tears and her pale eyes purple-rimmed under the lone streetlight.  She wipes her nose and waves at them.

  
"Oh _darlin'_ ," murmurs Simon, breaking away from Kieren with an apologetic glance, and goes to her.  "Hush now, it'll be okay.  Really it will.  Why don't you tell us what happened?"  
  
Kieren crouches in front of her, taking her hands while Simon settles beside her and puts a protective arm around her shoulders.  That she should come to them without anyone else present, what with the way she died, is a wonder.  He wonders what the ULA must have meant to her. 

"Take your time," Kieren says.  "And only if you _want_ to tell us.  If all you need's somebody to sit with for a while, that's fine.  If it's a place to stay tonight, we have a spare bed.  You're safe."

"I blacked out," Frankie whispers.  "Right into my dinner.  I—I've been eating little bits, not _too_ much, so Mum makes me a plate.  I scared her and my brother half to death.  Jamie's probably still crying.  He's so young and it's the night before Christmas and I _couldn't_ —"  
  
"Let's get you inside," says Simon, coaxing the girl to her feet, and nods to Kieren.  "Call her mother," he says.  "Tell her to let Jamie know his big sister's safe, that she'll come home."

"Thank you," Frankie sniffles, wiping her nose on her sleeve while Kieren holds out his mobile so she can punch in her mum's number.  "I'm so embarrassed, but after what happened to my friends, I really haven't got anyone.  It's been _hard_.  I know she's down on you lot right now, but I miss Zoe and the rest.  I miss them lots.  I hope they're not going to do anything stupid.   I don't want them to hurt you, or themselves, or anyone.  I've seen those riots on the telly."

Kieren gets a terrified Helen on the line after only two rings; he senses a note of fear in her response after he says who he is, although it turns to unadulterated relief once he explains that Frankie's unharmed and that she should tell her son they'd be happy to walk his sister home.

"After a cup of tea," says Simon, nodding as Kieren hangs up, and holds the door open for him and for Frankie.  "I think we've earned a nice break after what we've been through tonight."

"Did you have it hard, too?" Frankie asks once Simon's got her settled with Kieren on the sofa in the front room; Simon leaves again to put on the kettle.  "Bad night for family dinner?"

"Absolutely the _worst_ ," Kieren agrees, and Frankie cracks a smile.  "I could hear your brother's voice in the background," he tells her.  "He was asking about you, very eager.  How old is he?"

"Seven," replies Frankie, tucking her hair behind her ears.  "But he sounds at least ten.  He's smart for his age, always so curious.  When I asked mum how they explained . . . "  She looks at the far wall.  "He was only three.  He didn't say anything, and he cried for days.  He knew."

"It was hard on my sister when I died," Kieren sighs.  "She went . . . God, just _incandescent_ with rage, and she's still working it out.  She's the last person you'd want to trust with—" _with a gun_ , he thinks, not daring to speak the rest.  "They'll heal in time, you know.  Just like we will."

" _Are_ we healing?" asks Frankie, doubtfully.  "I'm scared.  Simon says we're fine as we are."

"We're fine as we are no matter what happens to us," says Kieren, but he's disquieted by the question.  "Even if we're changing, do you understand?  I'm scared, too."  He cracks a half-smile, and Frankie's widens.  "Even Simon's scared, I'll bet, even though he'd never admit it."

"Of course I am," says Simon, rattling in with the tea tray, and sets it down on the coffee table.  "The trick is not to let it paralyze you, okay?  Fear is the mind-killer," he says, pouring some tea into each of the three mugs, and, God, Simon's read _Dune_ ; as if Kieren hadn't fallen hard enough.

"The mind-killer," Frankie echoes, staring at him in slight awe.  "I like that.  What's it from?"

Kieren starts to explain the story before Simon can launch into it, so Simon makes himself useful by vanishing into Amy's bedroom and pulling the novel off her shelf.  Frankie cradles the battered paperback like it's something precious, and her eyes well up at the sight of Amy's name inside the front cover.  She brushes the faded pen-strokes with her finger.

"I heard somebody dug her up," Frankie says.  "In the paper.  Mum didn't want me to see."

"That did happen," says Simon, gravely, sitting down on the other side of her with his mug in hand, "but we don't know enough just yet.  This might come right.  You've got to have faith."

Kieren glances up from his mug, meeting Simon's determined gaze.  He thinks of Jem, how she'd looked at him when Lisa's parents had said the same thing.  He nods, smoothing the book cover.

"Your mum's worried about you, Frankie," he says.  "Do you want us to walk you home?"

"She's already on her way," Frankie sighs, holding up her phone.  "Texted to say as much."

Seeing her off with Amy's book in hand fills Kieren with an odd sense of pride, like they've been more useful in one evening than they've managed to be in weeks _._   He rejoins Simon on the sofa and tries to finish what's left of his tea, but his heart's not in it; he might yet cough it up later (or _worse_ ), but for the moment it's staying down.  Simon slouches down a bit, rests his head on Kieren's shoulder.  Kieren stares at the ceiling and brushes at Simon's wind-mussed hair.

"So today happened," he announces, sighing.  "No more worrying about how to break it to everyone, I guess.  _Itemhood_ and whatnot.  God, my dad: _dating, like_.  Who _says_ that?"

"Who says _itemhood_ , for that matter?" asks Simon, poking Kieren lightly in the ribs.

"We can bring back some of my stuff after we've hung about the house all day tomorrow," Kieren says, and Simon groans, burying his face against Kieren's neck.  "Look, I _know_ they're a handful, I really do, I had to put up with them my whole life—whole _lives_ , rather—and I'm honestly just glad I've now got somebody to share the torture."  Simon's groan turns to laughter.

"Frankie said something," says Simon at length, once he's calm again.  "It's got me thinking."

"We can't have _that_ ," replies Kieren, trying to keep the mood light, but he knows it won't hold.

" _Simon says we're fine as we are_ ," Simon echoes.  "She's got a point, Kier.  We've defined ourselves by what we've become, and it's my feeling that what we've become has helped us to discover who we've always been.  Don't give me that look; I read philosophy at uni, what do you expect?  This question has real-world applications.  What'll happen to our community, to the ULA, to all of us redeemed, once we change?  Will some of us turn our backs, disown what's such an integral part of our experience?  Will those of us who prefer not to forget have to fight to retain this identity?  How will the government define us?  What if some of us _don't_ change?"

"Please, _please_ stop saying what's in my head," Kieren begs.  "It's Christmas Eve, Simon."

Simon sits up and reaches for Kieren's cheek, brushes it gently before turning Kieren's head so that they're looking right at each other.  There's a terror in his expression that shouldn't be there, and Kieren's instantly sorry; he wants to kiss it away, soothe it down, blow it into oblivion. 

"I will love you," says Simon, gravely, "no matter what color your eyes are, understand?"

"You love me?" Kieren asks, and it's the wrong thing to say, God, is it _wrong_ , but Simon's expression doesn't seem to suggest as much, and relief replaces his fear.  " _Jesus_.  I mean—"

"That word doesn't come easy to you and yours, does it?" Simon asks patiently.  "Love."

Kieren lets out a frustrated sigh, his head dropping back against the sofa.  "We bottle things up, in case you hadn't noticed," he mutters.  "I honestly don't know who's worse—Jem or my dad."

"You don't have to say it," Simon murmurs, leaning closer, and Kieren finds it easy to pull him into a kiss fueled by both apology and desire.  "You _show_ me, and I have faith that it's true."

"It is, actually," Kieren says, and kisses Simon again.  "I've given it some serious thought."

"We'd best hold off on Gretna Green," Simon quips.  "We nearly gave your dad a stroke."

"PDS individuals and marriage laws," retorts Kieren, testily.  "The last great frontier."

"Let's worry about the repatriation bollocks first," Simon replies.  "Our non-citizenship will be ruled not-on in short order, or it will if Downing Street knows their arses from their elbows."

"Fucking Victus," Kieren sighs, humming as Simon idly kisses his neck.  "I hear Maxine Martin got sectioned.  Best thing for her, really.  I have to feel sorry for a mind so misled by belief."

Simon raises his head again and regards Kieren warily, his brow furrowed.  "Care to explain?"

Kieren balls his hands into fists and beats them against his thighs.  "That's not what I _meant_ , Simon.  I know I called you a zealot the day it all went down, but look, that was in jest.  You at least had the sense to recognize you'd latched onto something toxic.  Had the sense to _doubt_."

Simon kisses Kieren on the mouth by way of response: rough enough to chide, but _forgiving_.

"I'd ask you to fuck me tonight," he breathes, "but I don't think either one of us is up to it yet."

"That gives _the mind is willing, but the flesh is weak_ a brand-new meaning," Kieren laments.

"I don't know why we're changing, or _how_ ," Simon murmurs, "but wherever it leads, I'm happy with what we've got.  I want you to know that.  I'd be happy with _less_ if that's what it meant."

 _I love you_ , thinks Kieren, and holds him.  _I love you with all my strength, and I'm still here._

*

 

 

Come morning, Simon has to pin Kieren down to keep him from bouncing out of bed, all nerves, before eight o'clock.  There'll be no gifts for them to open on account of the coffee-table expenditure, although Kieren warns Simon that Jem might have a surprise up her sleeve.

"As long as it isn't the Colt, I'd say we're in fine shape," Simon jokes, which prompts Kieren to smack him where it counts and good fucking God, does it ever _sting_.  "Sorry, that was . . . "

"See?  It hurts," says Kieren, stretching as he sits up.  "Okay, we've got to be there for nine."

Simon would have liked nothing so much as to demand the day to themselves, but Kieren's family remain ecstatic to have him home.  Given Simon _has_ no other home, it's just as well.  Steve sticks Santa-hats on their heads as soon as they're in the door, and Jem, sulking on the sofa, no longer looks put-upon by the fact she's been made to wear one, too.  Simon joins her.

"You should've seen last time," Jem tells him.  "It was sodding berets and atrocious French."

"Right around the time we met, then," Simon says to Kieren, who's staring at the television.

"What's this?" says Kieren, pointing at the footage marked _LIVE_.  "Where's this happening?"

"Blimey, that's Norfolk," says Steve, picking up the remote control as he walks past the coffee table, turning up the volume.  "It's gone to hell in a handbasket.  They've stormed the Centre."

Suddenly, Simon can't focus on anything but the chaos on the screen.  _They_ , he thinks, but what he's getting from the visual impact is another matter entirely.  _No_ , _not they.  We._ The police are hauling in protesters, living and undead alike.  When Kieren's hand tightens on his, he realizes—

"Shirley and Philip," says Kieren, distantly, stopping himself short.  "I hope they're all right."

"Mum heard they went down there, too," Jem murmurs.  "Patty told her at Save 'n' Shop."

"How are Lisa's parents?" Kieren asks, and Simon shifts his focus from the news report to the conversation.  "It must be hard on them knowing there are fewer untreated out there than ever."

"Why would it be hard on them knowing that?" Simon asks.  "This Lisa died around when you did?  Is it that she's unaccounted for?  Next time we're in the churchyard, be sure to point out—"

Kieren closes his eyes, turning his head to one side.  "She's missing because we killed her," he says once Steve's left to help Sue in the kitchen.  "Me and Amy, I mean.  We were hungry."

"The weird part is, they never recovered her body," Jem explains while Simon tugs Kieren down off the arm of the sofa and into his lap.  "Which leads us to believe someone moved her, or . . . "

"I don't think that's how it works," says Simon, letting Kieren curl up and tuck his head under Simon's chin.  "I wish I didn't know that, but— _Christ_.  My mum didn't get back up, either."

Jem's expression is the only clue Simon needs.  Kieren hasn't shared this information.

"Are you," she begins, and then stops.  "Are you _actually_ telling me this, that you—"

"I've seen an untreated adult share his kill with a child," Kieren says so quietly that it's almost a whisper.  "Left to our own devices in that state, we don't usually hunt alone.  Is it so strange we'd stay in the vicinity of what's familiar to us?  Or that some of us would've returned to the only place that beckons out of the void?  Just because it's behind us doesn't mean we're just going to _forget_ —not what came before the Rising, and not what's just recently past, either."

Simon feels unaccustomed tightness in his chest, feels like Kieren's crushing him, but he holds onto this boy like the anchor he is.  He knows now that Kieren's gift is for translating visual memory into thought-process _where no thought had existed_ ; Kieren's memories are the sharpest Simon has encountered, and he wonders if revelation prioritizes the personal over the universal. 

If Simon is special because he'd been the first to form words in response to the cocktail forced into their veins, then Kieren is special because he'd been the first to give those words _meaning_.

Jem is on her feet before Simon can offer comment on this insight, so he keeps it to himself.  Kieren doesn't move, just burrows tighter into the nest he's made of Simon's jumper.

"If I can have just _one_ _day_ without the two of you going off on some tangent without a trigger warning attached," she says shakily, "let's make it the rest of today, all right?  Cool.  Thanks."

Jem walks out of the room with what Simon knows is intended as calm deliberation, but in actuality she's terrified and still not coping properly.  _Why_ did he even think his presence in this house could possibly come to good when Kieren's enough of a live wire in his own right?

"I should go," he says, pushing at Kieren.  "Your sister's unsettled enough, and I'm just giving her one more thing to fret about.  It's awful, isn't it, learning your prospective brother-in-law—"

"Come off it," Kieren snaps, sprawling so that Simon's even more trapped.  "If you leave, then I'll leave, too, and we'll be in Dad's bad books till _next_ Christmas.  She'll get used to this."

"She had a point about you shooting off your mouth," Simon replies.  "She's trying to heal."

"Then why'd you go contributing to the gory details?" Kieren demands tetchily, sitting up.

"Because—Jesus Christ, Kieren, _because_ ," insists Simon.  "Her friend's not coming back."

"I tried to tell her that once," Kieren says, " _and_ Lisa's parents, but—it's a faith thing, right?"

"Did anyone out there order a full English?" Sue calls from the kitchen.  "Boys, _breakfast_!"

Kieren sullenly hauls himself up, and then offers Simon his hand.  "Let the games begin."

"May the Lord have mercy on our souls," Simon mutters under his breath, taking Kieren's hand, but he delays them a moment in order to snag the remote control and turn off the bloody telly.

"Why'd you do that?" hisses Kieren, claiming their usual side of the dining-room table.  "Dad loves a good live-action clusterfuck, although I'm sure Mum will thank you.  Sit down."

As they're settling in, Sue, Steve, and Jem bring out all of the necessaries.  Simon feels raw frustration as Sue cheerfully sets a plate in front of each one of them, but it's overwhelmed by a sudden, violent sense of hunger.  Eggs, beans, sausage, toast, tomatoes: what he's smelling now isn't tied to memory, but to the actual thing that is his stomach, and it _growls_.

"Somebody's rarin' to go," says Jem, busy pouring tea into cups set around the table, and looks to her father.  "Were you the one picking off bits while Mum cooked so we've all got less?"

While Steve gives her a guilty, helpless look, Kieren fixes Simon with an unreadable one.

Simon can't remember the last time he ate almost half the contents of a plate, and he becomes the focus of their entire meal.  Sue and Steve heap praise on him, but their children are curiously silent, watching each other and Simon's busy silverware by turns.  Kieren eats an egg and two bites of sausage and a spoonful of beans, but his actions seem spiteful.  Jem's gone from looking disgruntled with him to looking genuinely concerned.  Simon takes Kieren's hand under the table, squeezing it, but Kieren doesn't squeeze back, just leaves it limp in Simon's fingers.

"Finish your tea, love, if you can't finish anything else," Sue tells him.  "It's all right."

Kieren looks grey-faced even for someone as pale as he is.  "No, I think I overdid it."

"Need me to fetch the bucket, Kier?" Jem asks, her disquiet having faded into full-on concern.  "Or keep you company outside the door while you're camped in the loo?"

"We can go home if you don't feel well," Simon sighs, wondering if that's what this is: Kieren's overdone it so they don't have to stay, having got some bee in his bonnet he's not willing to discuss.  "Sue, this is wonderful," he tells her, and means it.  "I haven't been so hungry in—"

"Sorry," Kieren mutters, rising with his napkin pressed over his nose and mouth, and flees.  He disappears into the loo that's just off the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.

Simon and Jem follow. There's no getting him to open up, Simon can hear retching over the sound of running water.  They stand staring helplessly at each other for long moments, hyper-aware of Sue and Steve engaging in bright, forced chatter about how to handle gifts. The loo is quiet now except for the occasional labored breath, so it's just the tea that's got to Kieren, Simon reasons, and nothing more solid gone through his system.  It's a good sign, he thinks, and concentrates on how _he_ feels after having had even more.  Jem breaks the silence.

"You're ahead of him," she says, bursting into an unexpected grin, arms folded across her chest.

"I'm what?" Simon asks, perplexed.  "I don't find this funny.  There's no instruction manual."

"You're ahead of the curve," Jem explains.  "Getting there faster than he is.  Competitive little _shit_ ," she says, raising her voice, banging on the door with her fist.  "It isn't a race, you know!"

Kieren mumbles a response containing _not what this is about_ and _what the hell do you know._

Simon sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.  "I think I understand," he says.  "You're frustrated.  First Amy, God rest her soul, and now me.  Listen, if the data's any indication, it won't make you sick forever.  Don't envy me, Kier, I'm not looking forward to needing—"

" _Gross_ ," Jem interjects.  "As if Amy's knickers speech back in the day weren't bad enough."

Kieren yanks open the door and peers out at them, like he's been made to smile against his will and he's feeling sheepish about it.  There's still a trace of black at his lower lip, so Simon wipes it away with his thumb.   Kieren emerges reluctantly, and Jem throws her arms around him.

"Look at my kid brother, eatin' like a big boy," she says.  "Never thought I'd get to say _that._ "

"Come on," says Simon, relieved, shoving his hands in his pockets.  "I hear there's presents."

Much to Simon's chagrin, Sue's done up a stocking for him in addition to the ones for her children.  He shows off the gloves, scarf, and socks while Jem's busy griping about the absence of some obscure album or another she'd wanted; Kieren, meanwhile, has licked the tip of one new watercolor pencil and tested it on the back of his hand.  Steve adjusts his hat and looks mildly disappointed that everyone else, one by one, has found an excuse to ditch their own.

While Jem's busy inspecting her actual gifts, Simon watches Kieren start to sketch his sister in profile on the inside of a wrapping-paper scrap.  As soon as Sue's gone to clear plates, Steve reaches for the remote control; the news report is still rolling, and Kieren pointedly ignores it.

"Hey," says Simon, as softly as he dares.  "Are you mad at me or mad at what's going on there?"

"I'm mad that there's nothing we can do," Kieren says.  "That we're not with Shirley and Philip."

"I'm worried about them, too," Simon admits, "and I'm also worried for _her_ , don't think I'm not."

"Looks like they're gettin' things back under control," Steve comments.  "There's lots of arrests."

"Yeah, and I hope at least two of those are the ones who dug Amy up," Kieren mutters, his pencil-strokes growing more deliberate.  "But I suppose they'll just be focused on the protesters."

Simon catches a sound-bite, something about patients feared missing, and can't help but hope.

The rest of the day passes in a manner that's uneventful in comparison to that morning.  After the midday meal, Jem gives Simon and Kieren a matching set of braided wristbands that she'd snuck off across the plaza and bought while the rest of them had been mucking about in IKEA. 

For a while, Simon's afraid Kieren won't put his on—still touchy about his scars, even after all this time—but he finally rolls up his right sleeve and holds out both wristband and wrist to Simon while they're all watching the _Doctor Who_ special.  Simon ties it on for him.

"Tell me we can have tomorrow to ourselves," Simon says under his breath, "or I'll go spare."

Kieren nods, absently scratching alongside his stitches before rolling his sleeve back down.  "Did you hear that?" he says, smirking at Simon's abashed reaction to having just taken the conversation public.  "We're off-limits for all of Boxing Day, no exceptions granted."

"Time for more of your, oh, what d'you call it," says Jem, casually.  "Artistic license?"

Kieren signs his name along the lower edge of the drawing, at which he's been fussing for hours now, and hands it over to her.  "Yeah, more of that," he says.  "Happy Christmas, Jem."

 

 

*

 

 

They don't return to the bungalow till nine o'clock that evening, and they don't have nearly as much of Kieren's stuff in tow as they'd planned to bring back.  Between them, they don't get much sleep, because Kieren spends half the night in the loo, and Simon occupies it for the other half.  It's four in the morning before Simon passes out and somewhere near _five_ when Kieren's eyes drift shut, the gnawing discomfort in his gut having finally settled.

Kieren wakes up at eleven and emphatically _doesn't_ go out to make tea; instead, he wraps himself in one of Amy's bathrobes and settles into sketching Simon while he's asleep.  The itch in Kieren's arm is more insistent this morning, but he ignores it.  Simon's spine isn't visible anymore, not since Tom had done repairs while he'd tended the gunshot damage done by Pearl.  Kieren can't help wondering if, like Jem, they're trying to heal—in a much more _literal_ sense.

Simon yawns, rubbing his eyes, and rolls onto his back.  "You're thinking so loud I can hear."

"Force of habit," says Kieren, setting his sketchpad aside on the floor, and lets the robe slip off his shoulders before climbing back under the covers.  "Keeping an eye out so you don't vanish."

They trade kisses back and forth for a while until Simon tilts Kieren's chin up to look at him.

"I'm not going anywhere, Kieren," he says.  "And I'd have you right now, but I feel like shit."

"That's okay," Kieren replies, so worn-out that lying stretched lazily against Simon under soft, nearly threadbare sheets and an ancient duck-down duvet from home is more than enough.

They doze for a while, losing track of time.  They're awake and idly touching, Kieren's fingertips at the backs of Simon's thighs and Simon's lips against Kieren's ear, when someone knocks at the front door.  Kieren smacks the headboard in frustration, and Simon soothingly rubs his back.

"I doubt it's my family," Kieren admits, propped up on his elbows.  "They'd have called."

"We should get up and answer it," Simon sighs.  "Heaven knows it might be important."

If Frankie can tell the clothes they're wearing when they open the door are too hastily thrown together to be considered civilized, she doesn't show it.  She's got a tinfoil-covered casserole dish clutched to her chest with one arm, and a young boy with curious grey eyes and hair even paler than Frankie's holds onto the other.  He scuffs his trainer on the doormat.

"I told Mum you were eating," Frankie says.  "She wanted me to bring you this, with thanks."

Jamie Kirby scratches his nose and clears his throat.  "Me too," he adds.  "Happy Christmas."

Kieren knows he shouldn't laugh, but the look Simon's giving him and Frankie by turns is grumpy and hilarious.  He shouldn't laugh because it would be an affront to the earnest display of gratitude before him and would also send Simon into a snit, so he beckons the kids inside.

"So far, I think that book is _ace_ ," says Frankie, a short time later, seated at the tiny dining-room table alongside her brother.  They've both got dishes of their mum's bread pudding set in front of them; Kieren and Simon, on the other hand, have abstained for the time being, lingering off to one side with mugs of tea in hand ( _Kieren's_ stomach had begun to plead hunger when faced with serving the still-warm pudding, but he doesn't dare risk it).  "Did Herbert write more?"

"Between him and his son, there are a handful of sequels," Simon allows, pulling out one of the remaining chairs so he can sit across from their guests.  "But only the second and third ones are worth reading.  It gets weird after that, take it from me."

"I won't read any of them," Kieren insists, still leaning against the partition.  "I prefer to think of _Dune_ as a cracking stand-alone with the most perfect ending line known to humankind."

"And undeadkind?" Frankie asks teasingly, but Kieren knows she's at least partly serious.

Jamie sets down his fork, and then says moodily, "We're _all_ human.  That MP lady's a twat."

Frankie rolls her eyes, but she pats her brother fondly.  "Kiddo here's got a future in politics."

"It's true," Jamie insists, going the indignant route, and Simon glances over his shoulder at Kieren with a look that's part _This is ridiculous_ and part _I'm so proud I could cry_.  "It's not right tellin' people they don't belong just 'cause they're different.  I learned that in school, even."

"You're sister's very lucky to have _you_ ," Kieren tells him, coming over to sit beside Simon.

"Mum's lucky to have him," says Frankie, her pale eyes turning troubled.  "She'd never have got through while I was . . . away, I mean if not for this clever-clogs right here."

Jamie looks at his sister with reverent adoration.  "I knew you'd come back.  Mum didn't believe me, but I just knew.  Sometimes you just know things.  That's called _intuition_."

Simon still looks like he can't suss out why there are two children setting the universe to rights here in the bungalow he's inherited without even having done anything, in _his_ view, to deserve it.  "That's right, Jamie," he says, apparently at a loss.  "Sometimes you do, and it counts for a lot." 

"Just don't let it reach the point of delusion," Kieren says carefully.  "Like Miss Martin did."

"I know what that is," says Jamie, darkly.  "S'when you get so convinced of lies you go crazy."

Kieren watches Simon close his eyes, watches Simon's lips become a thin, pained line, and abruptly fears he's taken this entire conversation a step too far.  Simon straightens, blinking.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," he says.  "Sometimes, Jamie, it's because somebody's suffered so much grief and has lost so much they don't know what else to do."

"Yeah, I hear that," replies Frankie, pained.  "Mum might've voted Victus if not for me."

Kieren can sense Simon's lingering agitation, and he feels like the worst person on the face of the planet for somehow always managing to remind Simon just what he had, until recently, believed with such fervor as to shame the entire pantheon of saints.  He catches Simon's free hand under the table, refusing to let Simon pull away.  He runs his thumb along the lifeline of Simon's palm.

"That's why it's so important we have each other," Kieren says.  "Checks and balances."

Frankie turns the conversation back to literary criticism and the philosophy of _Dune_ , and Kieren is willing to guess she's done better than Jem must have on their English GCSE.  While Simon engages her on that front, Kieren shows an increasingly restless Jamie where the loo is, and then, once he's finished, takes him into the front room and lets him flip through some old sketchpads. 

Jamie's busy explaining why he thinks he'd make a brilliant artist someday when another knock sounds at the door.  Kieren gets up to answer, afraid it's going to be Helen in a tizzy over what's kept her children so long, but instead he finds a coat-and-pyjama-clad Jem with yesterday's mascara smudged and her hair done up in a messy ponytail.

"Mum's afraid you lot might be hungry," she says, obviously annoyed that she's been sent on a personal errand instead of being told to give Kieren a ring.  "We're doing up leftovers."

"Thanks, but food's not going over so well today," Kieren replies.  "You look cold, Jem," he adds, and pulls her inside in spite of the resistance she puts up.  "They let you go out like _that_?"

"They let _you_ go out when your bedroom door was locked," Jem retorts, flopping down on the sofa.  "Give me a break.  Everyone knows the Walker house is no Tower of London."  She regards Jamie, who's seated at the opposite end of the sofa, with perplexity.  "Who's this?"

"Jamie Kirby," Kieren says, unsure of whether he ought to sit back down on the floor and resume the sketchpad tour or run into the next room to fetch the philosophers away from their chat _or_ . . .

"I know your sister from school," Jem tells Jamie, offering the boy her hand.  He shakes it.

Simon chooses that moment to wander in with a reticent Frankie just behind him; Frankie's looking at Jem like the house has just suffered an invasion punishable by severe interrogation in the very _least_.  Simon holds Frankie back with one hand on her shoulder, his eyes fixed on Jem.

"What an unexpected pleasure," he says, flashing his crooked smile at her.  "Sick of the parents?"

"Honestly, _yeah_ ," Jem moans, and then turns to look at whatever drawing Jamie's trying to show her via means of timidly tapping on her elbow.  "Oh, that one's _well_ good," she agrees.  "I remember back when Kier was drawing that.  He skipped dinner every night for a week."

Frankie shrugs off Simon's hand and steps forward, folding her arms across her chest.  "Is what I heard true?" she asks.  "They're saying Gary Kendal was involved, but _are_ you the one—?"

Kieren wants to rush to his sister's side, _longs_ to help her face this admission, but he's caught in the cross-hairs, and Simon's expression keeps him frozen where he is.  Jamie taps Jem's hand.

"It wasn't your fault," explains the boy, and then looks at his sister.  "She was delusional."

Jem blinks at Jamie, fresh tears already turning her mascara into even more of a mess, and then looks back at Frankie, nodding with slow, devastated conviction.  "Yes," she says.  "I was."

Frankie looks at Simon next, her eyes all white-hot venom, but Simon tilts his head subtly at Jem while looking back at her.  Frankie sighs raggedly, put-upon, and lets her arms drop to her sides.

"I guess it's been hard," she says, and it clearly takes a lot of effort.  "I hope you get help."

There isn't much socializing after that, as the atmosphere turns forced and somber.  In less than thirty minutes, Frankie and her brother are on their way home, and Kieren finds himself on the sofa with a sobbing mess of Jem practically in his _lap_.  Simon puts the kettle on again and returns with tea and bread pudding; Jem wipes her nose on her sleeve and digs into both like she hasn't eaten in days.  They don't let her leave until she's stopped crying and washed her face.

"What a fine mess we've got here," Simon mutters, shifting Kieren's old sketchpad aside so he can flop down beside Kieren on the sofa.  "Apparently nobody's cared enough to inform us we run an official Undead-Living Family Relations Crisis Centre."

"I blame the holidays," Kieren sighs.  "Emotions always run high this time of year."

"I wanted some time with you, Kier," Simon reminds him.  "I _didn't_ want to share."

"Well, look, it isn't quite four o'clock," Kieren points out, stripping off the hoodie that had once belonged to his father.  "We've got _hours_ of Boxing Day fun left at our disposal."

Simon kisses him, conciliatory, so Kieren leans into the peace offering with relief.

 

 

*

 

 

 _We're trying this again_ , Simon thinks the next morning, with not much in his head except for the feel of Kieren, sleepy and warm from a night spent on the radiator-side of the bed, pressed up against him.  _Boxing Day, Part Deux._ Kieren squirms when Simon kisses his shoulder. 

They're back to rights now, might even manage food later, but what Simon wants is to chase this new-found warmth, how it lingers as it hadn't quite done before, how Kieren feels harder than ever where he's pressed against Simon's hip and how _Simon_ feels the tight, eager pull of wanting as intensely as the hunger they've so recently found restored.

Simon's grateful they'd brought the lube in from the coffee table for quite a number of reasons, not least the fact there'd been youngsters hanging about the day before.  But it's mostly because Kieren is panting, whimpering at every shift between them, whispering things like _Touch me, Simon_ and _Suck me, please_.  Simon decides he'll touch Kieren first and suck him later; getting his fingers slick and wrapped around both of them in one go seems to do the trick.  Kieren _wails_.

"Jesus, Jesus _Christ_ ," Simon gasps, bracing himself up with his free hand planted firmly alongside the pillow; too late, too _late_ , he's coming already.  Kieren tugs Simon's face down, kisses him roughly, bites Simon's lower lip so hard that it can only mean he's coming, too. 

They slump in the same shared breath, Simon's hand on them slowing to a halt, and Kieren runs shaky fingers through the _extraordinary_ mess they've made.  Simon blinks, fascinated, as Kieren brings his hand up in front of his face; at first, Simon thinks Kieren is going to lick his fingers, but Kieren squints at his hand instead, fanning the digits for Simon to inspect.

"Something's different," he says with an effort, breathing hard.  "Can you spot it?"

Simon can spot it, but he doesn't know how to admit he knows which of them it is.

Kieren _does_ lick at his index finger, which is pale-slicked instead of blackened.  " _Hm_."

"You must've contributed some," says Simon, reluctantly.  "Here, there's a touch of—"

Kieren rolls out from under Simon and wipes his hand on the sheet, moodily silent.  "Jem's right, you know," he says after an interminable several minutes' silence in which Simon's at a loss for what to say.  "I'm not keeping up, not getting there fast enough.  You'll be alive, and I'll be—"

"We'll be who we are, Kieren, for fuck's sake," Simon sighs, cleaning off with another part of the sheet before kicking the covers down so he can tug Kieren back into his arms.  "It _isn't_ a race."

Kieren's visibly upset, and Simon can only think as he nuzzles Kieren's hair that it's a miracle they're holding this together when they keep going so very _wrong_.  Kieren isn't crying, but he's closer to tears than Simon would like.  He holds Kieren and hopes his faith's not misplaced.

"There's not what I believe _and_ you," Simon whispers.  "You _are_ what I believe in, and more."

Kieren hiccups, laughing and sobbing at the same time.  "Simon, look at me.  I'm a disaster."

"No, you're lucky.  There's a tremendous difference," Simon insists.  " _I'm_ the disaster, okay?"

"How about we stop trying to assign disaster status and call it a draw?" replies Kieren, wearily; he sags into Simon's embrace, all the tension leaving him.  "I'm sorry.  I don't like this, don't like it when I've just come to terms with—I _like_ who am, Simon.  Who we are.  And if we lose—"

"We can't possibly lose more than we've already lost," Simon interrupts, shaking Kieren as hard as he dares.  "Jesus _fucking_ Christ, don't you play the doubter, too.  We'll work with it."

Before Kieren can respond, his mobile phone vibrates next to the lube on the nightstand.

"I'll get it," he sighs, rolling away from Simon to grab the device.  "Yeah, hello?  Jem?"

Simon watches as Kieren's brow furrows, experiences intense confusion as Kieren holds the phone out to him without comment.  Simon takes it and brings it up to his ear.  "Who is this?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you so early," says Doctor Russo, "but I've just made a house-call I think you should know about.  I would've told Kieren, but—well, that day at the surgery, he seemed the most upset.  I'd rather you told him."  Tom pauses, and Simon hears him draw a shaky breath.  "They made it back from Norfolk last night, Shirley and Philip.  They didn't return alone."

"Are they in any shape to see us?" Simon asks, on his feet and scrambling about for clothes before he can give it a second thought.  "Unless you tell me otherwise, we are _going_ —"

"I'm sorry, I have a patient," Tom says distractedly.  "Friday, business as usual, got to go."

Simon stares at the phone for a full three seconds after he's hung up, but Kieren must have heard just enough to propel him into socks, jeans, and a jumper that doesn't even belong to him.  He swipes the phone out of Simon's hand and shoves it in his back pocket, picking around on the floor till he's found Simon's trousers and, at random, another jumper.  He tosses them, impatient.

"We've got to ask them what it was like," says Kieren, urgently.  "If they heard anything."

 _Oh, sweet Kieren,_ Simon thinks, nodding mutely as he dresses.  _They more than just heard._

Neither one of them says a word as they walk to the Wilsons' residence, their hands shoved deep in coat and hoodie pockets as they trudge along.  Simon feels dizzy, strange, like he can't draw enough breath to keep his head clear; his lungs take in draught after draught of frigid air, unsatisfied.  His vision's blurry about the edges when they arrive, and Kieren must sense that something's wrong, because he's taken Simon's arm and started knocking on the Wilsons' door.

"You lot are a sight for sore eyes," says Shirley, who's more unkempt than Simon's ever seen her, and glances nervously about before ushering them inside.  "I suppose Tom will have told you."

"Told us what, exactly?" asks Kieren, appealing silently to Philip, who's standing next to the work-top fighting with the toaster.  "Doctor Russo rang, yeah, but he was _pret_ -ty cryptic."

Philip stops fiddling with breakfast and steps into the hallway, nodding to greet them both.

"I'll take you back now," says Philip, smiling in spite of his exhaustion.  "You won't believe it."

Simon grabs Kieren's shoulders and maneuvers him, pushing past Phil, the tightness in his chest and the roar in his ears too much.  Kieren protests being shoved ahead toward what Simon hopes is Philip's bedroom, but he goes.  If Simon's finally losing his senses, going the way of those poor sods back in the beginning who woke up for a while and didn't make it, then at least he'll be at Kieren's side.  He'll be blessed, one last time, to set his eyes—

The Wilsons' house-guest is propped up in Philip's bed: pale and dark-eyed, _breathing_.

"Hello, handsome!" Amy greets Kieren, giving Simon a sickly wink.  "Why so serious?"

The last thing Simon remembers is clutching at Kieren for support; when he opens his eyes, he's laid out on the air mattress on the floor next to the bed, which, presumably, Philip has been sleeping on while Amy occupies his usual spot.  Kieren's kneeling next to him, brow furrowed in concern, while Shirley and Philip hover in the doorway.  Shirley has a prepped syringe in hand.

Amy sits forward as much as she can manage and peers down at Simon, her eyes luminous.

"You'll be next," she tells him, pleased, and she's able to reach far enough to pat Kieren on the shoulder.  " _Look_ at you, Kieren Walker!  My BDFF all grown up and taking care of his man!"

"Something's wrong," says Simon, clutching at his chest.  "Kieren, I don't—there's something—"

Amy nods knowingly and taps Kieren on the shoulder.  "Shirley means well, but don't let her give him that," she says in a sing-song whisper.  "It won't help."  She takes Kieren's hand, the one that's not frantically clutching at Simon's arm, and draws it toward her.  "Now, don't you get any ideas," she says primly, pressing Kieren's palm flat between her breasts.

Simon, as disoriented as he is, gets it.  The pulse-beats fall into place, thrum wild in his veins.

"Oh God," says Kieren, tense as Simon places Kieren's other hand over Simon's beating heart.

"This is not a drill," says Amy, reassuringly, patting the back of Kieren's hand as she lifts it away from her chest and folds it between her own.  She sounds fragile, worn down, and Simon supposes that's to be expected; God knows how the Wilsons spirited her out amidst the chaos, or at what cost.  "It's happened to us, and you're not far behind.  Takes some getting used to, doesn't it?"

Kieren just stares at her, unblinking, and then looks away.  His eyes seek out Simon's face.

"Your eyes," he says uncertainly.  "They haven't changed."  He looks back to Amy.  " _When_?"

"Within hours, so the lab reports say," Amy replies with a scholarly air, settling back against her pillows.  "Philip says for me it was faster," she says proudly.  "Within the hour, as I lay dying."

"Dying," Simon repeats.  "Jesus, Amy, a second _time_ they've brought you back.  Explain?"

Kieren's fingers curl, snarling in Simon's jumper, so Simon rubs at Kieren's palm, at the back of his hand, until the tension drains and he's twining his fingers with Simon's like they represent his last chance at making sense of any of this.  "I don't want to hear about it right now," he says.

"Philip, love, put on some tea," says Shirley, reminding them they aren't alone.  "Kieren looks like he could use some, although—sweetheart, have you had your shot?" she asks him.

"A third as much, or I'll be too sick to eat," says Kieren, in sudden epiphany.  He bends forward, letting Simon kiss his knuckles one by one while Shirley administers the drug.

"Come up here, morgeous," Amy says, patting the bed beside her when it's done.  "Sit with me a while.  If not the account of my triumphant Second Rising, then at least let me tell you how brave Philip was out there on the barricade.  What's this, you don't approve of my metaphor?"

Simon sits up and gives Kieren a gentle shove; Kieren stops glaring at her and climbs onto the bed, only settling in Amy's arms when she forcibly tugs him there.  "He doesn't approve of hyperbole in most cases, I can tell you that," Simon sighs.  "Kieren, are you all right?"

"Brilliant," he mutters, leaning against Amy's shoulder as he stretches out beside her.

"Simon, Shirley—won't you be darlings and go help Philip with tea?" Amy asks, squeezing Kieren as tightly about the shoulders as he'll permit without halfheartedly shoving her back.

"Come on," Shirley says, taking Simon's arm, leading him out.  "Her ladyship commands."

While he's stuck at the tiny kitchen table with Philip, Shirley, a pot of tea, and a plate of toast, Simon strains to hear what Amy's saying to Kieren in the bedroom.  Shirley touches his hand.

"There was paperwork on a clipboard next to the—the place where they had her," she explains, and Simon's focus shifts instantly to what she's saying.  "I can give you a copy if you like."

"That would be helpful, thanks," Simon replies, thinly, and then looks at Philip.  "You did a brave, stupid thing, and you're lucky it turned out for the best.  They'll be looking for her."

"I know, sir," says Philip, sitting up straight in his chair.  "I won't let them take her again."

"She's safer here than at the bungalow, that much is sure," Simon tells Shirley.  "Thank you for what you've done.  I'll have questions about what you saw while you were in there, questions about the crowd, about the arrests.  Sounds like Kieren's getting some of it from Amy."

"You'll want to take it easy the next twenty-four hours or so," Shirley tells Simon.  "It's tough."

"It's _been_ tough," says Simon, watching Shirley as she gets up and comes behind his chair to peer down the back of his collar.  "I suppose there's been some change.  I've noticed itching—"

"Don't scratch if you can help it.  Keep vigilant with Kieren and his arms," Shirley says, pulling a pocket torch out of her cardigan so she can investigate Simon's injection site.  "It's closing."

"Keep vigilant, what the hell do you mean?" Simon snaps.  "He isn't a child.  We're capable."

"You'll be prone to infection again," says Philip, quietly.  "It says so in the paperwork."

Shirley sits back down, apparently satisfied that Simon's mending as he should.  "I don't mean to lecture you," she says, "but this won't have been stuff you saw during your time at the commune.  It's happening to people all over the country, and unless they've got others to compare notes, they're feeling scared and alone.  The Treatment Centre has known for a while, but they haven't been releasing any of it.  As you can imagine, they have no lack of . . . cases for observation."

"Observation," says Simon, flatly, and gets up without touching his tea; he's vaguely aware someone's following him, but he can't be bothered to glance back.  "Is that what we're calling it."  He walks back the hall, no longer hearing voices, and peers into Philip's room.

"We ought to leave them be," Philip whispers, tugging at Simon's shoulder.  "Stay a while."

Simon nods in agreement, fight gone out of him at the sight of Kieren and Amy fast asleep.

 

 

*

 

 

Kieren wakes to find Amy in _his_ arms instead of the other way around.  She's a vivid, heated presence Philip's cramped bed, a veritable furnace, and Kieren finds that it's easy to disentangle himself because she's so heavily asleep.  He wanders into the kitchen, finding the abandoned remnants of tea and toast on the table, and turns down the hall to the living room.

Philip and Shirley are leaning against each other on the sofa, asleep.  Meanwhile, Simon is off to one side in an armchair flipping through one of Shirley's ubiquitous PDS booklets.  He looks up.

"Hey," he murmurs, setting the useless thing aside.  "Sleeping Beauty awakes.  How is she?"

"The stuff she's been through, Simon," whispers Kieren, and goes to him, letting himself be tugged forward till he's straddling Simon's lap.  "And that's the stuff _after_ they found her."

"We'll have her tell both of us when she's ready," Simon replies, fussing with Kieren's hair.  "She may claim she is, but I don't know about that.  Whenever _you're_ ready, too.  As for me . . . "

"Don't think your readiness doesn't count," says Kieren.  "I know that stuff can set you off."

Simon kisses him, and Kieren leans into it willingly.  Simon is vibrant, fever-hot, burning to the touch, and, in a rush, Kieren imagines what's possible.  Illness, injury, infection, _overdose_ —

"Kieren, let's go home," says Simon, quietly, stroking the sides of Kieren's neck.  "Okay?"

Kieren looks into Simon's eyes then, really _stares_ , and can't find his voice to save his life.

"You knew what to expect," says Simon, patiently, and coaxes Kieren to his feet.  "You saw me with contacts the once."  He gets up, too, never once letting go of Kieren's hand.  "Are they—?"

"Nothing like the lenses," Kieren says as Simon leads him to the door.  "Paler, maybe.  Brighter."

"And Amy's eyes are more hazel than brown," Simon replies once they're out in the afternoon sunlight.  "Soon we'll see how _you_ didn't quite fit the box they handed you, either."

"I have a pretty good memory for my own face, thanks very much," Kieren retorts, feeling somewhat peevish.  "I'm sure my eyes were brown as brown can get.  Nothing special."

Simon gives him a sidelong glance that says _who the fuck are you kidding_ , and tucks Kieren's arm through the crook of his own for the entirety of their walk home.  They find a pile of Kieren's DVDs and a duffel bag of clothes on the doorstep, meaning Jem's made herself useful. 

"You're everything special," Simon tells him once they've got the stuff inside, "and we're going to watch anything you like for the rest of the night.  We'll have the next few days to ourselves."

"Amy will want to see us whenever she's awake, never mind the hour," Kieren sighs, but it's a sound plan.  Simon undresses them both like nothing's changed, kisses Kieren with aching sweetness as he leads him back the hall.  The shower feels better than Kieren expects it will, and seeing Simon's reaction to hot water with full-on nerve function is worth the price of admission.

Afterward, dressing in clean pyjamas and bathrobes feels like a luxury.  Simon, annoyed to find that the toast the Wilsons had given him hasn't fully served to tide him over, rummages in the cupboards until he turns up some granola bars and microwave popcorn.  They curl up on the sofa and watch the first three discs— _Pulp Fiction_ , _Lilo & Stitch_, and _Whale Rider_ —back to back to back.  Simon eats most of the popcorn, as well as two of the granola bars.  Kieren's surprised he manages to stomach even a single granola bar, silently thanking Frankie for her insight.

It's just past midnight as the third film winds to a close, so Kieren pats Simon's thigh to wake him and shuts off the telly.  "Looks like somebody's overdone it," he chides.  "Bedtime."

"For fuck's sake, why'd you let me sleep through it?" Simon protests, yawning, and doesn't resist when Kieren leads him into the bathroom and hands him a toothbrush.  "What's that for?"

"Amy's old one, probably," Kieren says.  "Do you get morning breath?  Can't hurt, can it?"

"Piss off," Simon grumps, but he takes the toothbrush and slams the door in Kieren's face.

That night, for the first time in a long while, Kieren dreams.  He's sitting by Rick's grave with June wildflowers in hand—only Rick, half-smiling and whole, is sat there beside him.  They must've talked, Kieren knows, but, on waking, he can't recall what either of them had said.

"You should write down your dreams," Simon advises over an improvised breakfast of granola bars and tea.  "I used to do that, at least till it became meaningless.  Trips were harder to record."

"There'll be no more of that," Kieren tells him.  "You'll swear, Simon.  Swear on my _grave_."

Said swearing happens after a trip to Save 'n' Shop for provisions.  Simon is sullen about it at first, seems to think the situation is ridiculous, asks why he would _ever_ do such a thing again—but Kieren's insistence has the same eroding effect as it had done with regard to coaxing him to lunch that very first time, and he patiently babysits their shopping bags while Simon complies.

Over lunch, Kieren makes Simon re-watch _Whale Rider_ from the beginning, which doesn't earn half as many protests by midway through the plot-arc as it had at the beginning.  Simon had seen to it that Kieren's dose had been given at the same reduction, and Kieren finds picking at unwanted bits of Simon's sandwich no hardship.  Simon curses every time he needs the loo.

By late evening, they've shared another sandwich and watched _The Fifth Element_.  They make love on the sofa after dusk, Kieren testing each and every sensitive spot that Simon can remember with ruthless efficiency.  He even finds a few that Simon had forgot.

"Your eyes change in different kinds of light," Kieren murmurs once they've retired, considering each amorphous shape he can discern in the darkened bedroom.  "I'll be drawing them a lot."

"That's a relief," Simon murmurs, drowsily spooning Kieren.  "I'd be concerned if you didn't."

They oversleep again, and it's only thanks to the obnoxious ring-tone that Kieren has recently assigned to Jem that they wake before noon.  "H'lo," he mutters, rubbing his eyes.  "What is it?"

"Good morning, lazy-arse," Jem greets him.  "Mum heard from Pearl you lot were down at the Save 'n' Shop yesterday picking up loads of food.  Cold cuts, bread, lettuce.  Real bachelor stuff."

"Yeah, well, Simon was hungry," Kieren tells her, feeling both protective and more than a bit stand-offish as Simon grumbles and pulls Kieren's pillow over his head.  "Maybe I was, too."

"Frankie's mum called up yesterday," Jem adds, and the statement sounds like a non-sequitur until she continues.  "She was walking the day before, says she saw you and lover-boy leave the Wilsons'."

Kieren's mouth goes dry, and Simon must've heard, because he stuffs Kieren's pillow back beneath Kieren's head and props himself up on one elbow, looming over Kieren in concern.  His eyes catch the sunlight through the curtains, and, for a moment, it's mesmerizing.

"We figured something out about the dosage," says Kieren, finally.  "If you've got symptoms like ours, you've got to cut it.  Frankie's got symptoms, so hopefully her mum would understand."

"People are spooked, Kieren," Jem says.  "People like you are behaving differently now."

"People like us are becoming more like people like _you_ ," Simon nearly shouts, so Kieren hands over the phone and mock-covers his ears.  "Isn't that what you all wished for?  Conformity?"

Jem is silent for a few seconds, startled, and then she says, "Sorry.  I didn't mean it like that."

"The government's being foolish," Simon continues, and Kieren's grateful both of them are speaking loudly enough for him to hear.  "The Treatment Centre's been documenting this for months, but they've kept the wool over everyone's eyes, and we're not sure why."

"So it's true, then!" Jem gasps.  "Shirley and Philip are back, and they—know things."

Kieren snatches the phone back from Simon and says, "Jem, please.  Don't say a word."

Jem swallows, and when she speaks again, Kieren can tell she's in tears.  "Does she want to see me?" she asks tearfully.  "Do you think it would be all right if I went—"

"It's bad enough Simon and I will be coming and going," Kieren says.  "Be patient."

"Oh, Kier," she sobs, taking a labored breath.  "Is she really—is Simon?  Are _you_?"

"No, not me," says Kieren, closing his eyes, and Simon touches his face.  "Not yet."

Once Kieren's snapped out of his Jem-induced funk, they have grapes and yogurt for breakfast.  It's only after they've finished that he realizes he hasn't had his injection, so Simon fetches the syringe and gives Kieren a questioning look.  He's had a pot of yogurt all to himself.

"Better safe," sighs Kieren, resigned, and turns his back to give Simon better access.

Simon kisses the back of his neck when the deed's done.  "Not much longer," he says.

Frankie comes to see them that afternoon.  They're in the middle of watching _The Matrix_ when she arrives, so they pause the film till she's settled on the sofa between them and Kieren's got out his pencils and sketchpad.  She'd been hoping to discuss the book some more, but the film, which she hasn't seen, interests her.  She's happy to serve as the subject when Kieren starts to draw.

"We live in one of these stories," says Frankie as the credits start to roll.  "It isn't sci-fi anymore, is it?  It's just _life_.  Before you know it, we'll have vampires, too.  Werewolves.  People who fly."

"Genre distinctions are pointless," Kieren agrees, shading the hollow of sketch-Frankie's cheek, although he's not sure he'd like to allow for things like vampires now that Simon and Amy can bleed.  "A great story's a great story, and sometimes life is just that.  Can you turn your head?"

"Look at your eyes," Simon murmurs, tapping the sketchpad.  "Remember yourself like this."

"I will," Frankie says without hesitation, "but I think Mum and everyone else wants to forget."

Come evening, Frankie's gone and the drawing's gone with her, so Kieren suggests take-away to see if Simon can still stomach his favorite food.  Simon admits that he honestly doubts that; that gives Kieren pause until he remembers _why_ , and he apologizes until Simon claps a hand over his mouth.  They settle on curry from the place up past the Legion that had remained in business right through the Rising.  Simon has no spice tolerance, which Kieren finds shockingly funny.

Simon sets aside the plate off which Kieren's been picking rice-grains and peas, tugging Kieren into his lap.  They kiss long and slow and deep, their fingers digging hard into arms, thighs, hips.

"I'd say I'm going to fuck that smirk off your face," says Simon, "but that's not how this'll go."

"No?" asks Kieren, breathlessly, pressing one hand to the front of Simon's trousers.  "Why?"

"I want it the other way around, and you're good for it," says Simon.  "Have been for _days_."

"Yes, okay," Kieren replies, and he feels almost weightless with elation.  "I hope so.  I'll try."

 

 

*

 

 

Kieren does better than just try, Simon decides; he manages beautifully, and then some.  Kieren wants it difficult, wants Simon on his back so he can look him in the eyes, but Simon's scar is healing, itching like the _devil_ , and rubbing against the sheets doesn't help.  He gives Kieren another bruising kiss and settles on his side, straining to reach back and brace Kieren on entry.

"Jesus," Kieren whispers finally, pressed flush.  "Simon, I'm already—I think I might—"

" _Shhh_ , I can feel you," Simon gasps; in truth, it hurts, hurts a _lot_ after all this time (and it's not as if he'd slept with all of London, or even enough to call himself promiscuous; he'd far preferred drugs to sex, and had it _ever_ shown).  "Do what you like, do what feels good."

"I want _you_ to feel good," Kieren insists, wrapping his hand around Simon's cock, "so that's what I'll do," and pulls out just enough to thrust back in before Simon has the chance to laugh.

Simon's breath leaves him on an urgent moan; Kieren whimpers, twitching against him, and repeats the action.  Simon lets go of Kieren's hip, flexing his poor, wrenched wrist, and covers Kieren's hand on his cock with his own.  It's clumsy, uncoordinated, and the _best thing since_ —

"No, _fuck_ ," Kieren sobs, and it’s scarcely been five minutes.  "Simon, sorry, Simon, I _can't_."

Enough just to know Kieren's coming so hard he can't speak, yeah _,_ best thing since Simon thought he'd found answers.  He pumps Kieren's shaking hand on himself a few more times and shouts Kieren's name into the pillow till he's hoarse.  They're sticky, disoriented and settling, so Simon draws Kieren's hand up to his mouth, kisses the vein-traced back of it like a prayer.

Kieren scrubs them off and fetches clean night-clothes, won't even let Simon get up to brush his teeth.  They fall asleep wordless and clinging, Kieren's kisses soft and unfocused as his breath evens out, doesn't fade when his eyes close.  Simon drifts off knowing it can't be long, _mustn't_.

After breakfast the next morning, Kieren announces they're going on a day-trip and that Simon's not to tell Amy on pain of orgasm denial.  Simon points out that's going to be difficult given they're going to see her later, and Kieren finishes fitting Tupperware containers of food into Simon's rucksack before agreeing it's just a risk Simon will have to be willing to take.

"She'd been asking me to take her where we're going for a while," Kieren adds.  "I never did."

"Then you can take her when she's well," says Simon, playfully wrestling the rucksack away from Kieren and shrugging it onto his own back.  "I get first dibs on outings, surely she knows."

"She'll be mad you got to see it first," says Kieren, cryptically.  "Let's go.  It's only a short hike."

Aside from the party they'd thrown up at the abandoned farm, Simon hasn't seen much of the woods surrounding Roarton.  Even in daylight, they possess a haunted quality that Simon can't help associating with the pathetic fragments of memory he'd recovered in and around the Rising.

"I don't think the rabid ones who were using this place for shelter are here anymore," Kieren says, leading Simon down the rise.  The trees ahead of them are thinner now, and he spots the cave without difficulty, doesn't need to be told its significance or have the _ROTTERS BEWARE_ graffiti on the rock-face explained away.  "The two I saw taken away were probably the last."

"Did you stay here?" Simon asks, indicating that Kieren should lead the way.  "You and Amy?"

"We might have," says Kieren, carefully, and turns on the torch well before they set foot beneath the overhang.  "Some of the flashes I've got are dark enough to be the interior, anyway, but that's not really the reason I'm showing you this."  He feels his way along the damp walls, leading until Simon can see the way it opens slightly, can see burnt-out candles and writing on the wall.

"Kieren, why _are_ you showing me this?" Simon asks, even though he's sure he already knows.

"I told you how, but I didn't tell you where," Kieren says, taking a seat against the wall, and pats the mossy earth beside him.  "It might help Frankie if I tell her sometime.  These woods are where we've hurt ourselves, Simon.  Where we've heart each other.  I don't like to forget."

"Jesus Christ," says Simon, at a loss for anything else.  _RICK + REN FOREVER_ , he reads.

"I don't expect us to have lunch in here," Kieren says after a while.  "There are better places."

"No, Kieren, there aren't.  You died here," Simon replies, "and so, to me, this place is holy."

Kieren kisses him for that, fierce and true.  "You'll return the favor sometime, won't you?"

"I died in the back room of a Shoreditch night club," Simon sighs.  "Not worth your time."

"Then you'll take me clubbing when we have our weekend museums extravaganza," Kieren says, grinning.  "I assume they're more careful with what goes on in the back room now."

"They may have shut it down for all I know," Simon says with a shrug.  "Haven't checked."

Amy scolds them for being twenty minutes late when they arrive at the Wilsons' several hours later, demanding to know what's kept them.  Simon stammers something about the Walkers having delayed them, but Amy's eyes are on the rucksack and refuse to budge.  He sighs.

"We were in the woods," Kieren tells her, saving Simon the trouble.  "Went on a hike."

"Well, boys," Amy says, clucking her tongue, and regally brings Philip's hand up to kiss the knuckle; he's sat on the floor on the opposite side of her bed from where Kieren and Simon are currently occupying his air mattress, but he looks like he's in heaven nonetheless.  "That _can't_ be right, can it?  One of you says the Walkers, the other says the woods.  Just won't _do_ , this kind of tomfoolery, will it?  Could it be you've taken the best, most utterly _special_ day-trip without me?"

"Jesus Christ, you'll get to go," Simon mutters, rubbing the massive itch that is his all-but-closed injection site.  Kieren smacks his hand, and he clenches it in his lap.  "Other people _exist_ , Amy."

"I know you do, dumb-dumb," she says airily, shooting Philip a sidelong glance that says _can you believe these losers?_   "But Kieren always promised we'd go.  I mean, promised we'd go _again_ now we've got our wits about us.  I don't remember much from the first time.  Bit foggy."

"I want to hear about your memories sometime," says Philip, and then winces.  "Wait, I _mean_ —"

"No, I get you," Amy says, ruffling his hair.  "Full disclosure, yeah?  I agree.  Goin' into any relationship, that stuff's _important_.  See what you're signin' on for in your former-zombie bride."

"It's why I had to take Simon out there sooner than later," Kieren says.  "I can't change it."

"Nobody's asking anybody to change anything," Simon insists.  "Just—be careful, okay?"

"My big, bad Disciple's such a delicate flower," Amy says, reaching down to pinch Simon's cheek.  "Didn't he tell you?  He's fine with other people's tough stuff, but he's got _demons_."

"Yeah, I think I had figured that out," says Kieren, slapping her hand away.  "I don't care.  I mean—Christ, look, I _do_ care.  What I mean is that I don't care if he's got demons.  So do we."

"Didn't used to be great at talking through mine," says Philip.  "Now, I'm not afraid of anything."

"After such a fine and scandalous public showing, dear heart, why would you be?" Amy asks, and Simon can see in the way she looks at him she's found someone who's content to give her his complete and undivided attention.  "Now, that's a hero.  Hester Prynne and bad-ass all in one."

"Hester _was_ a bad-ass, full stop, if you ask me," says Kieren, "so that statement's redundant."

"Going around without his cover-up, flaunting his feminism," Amy says.  " _Tsk_.  What next?"

"Giving kids their shots down at the surgery," Simon replies, winking at Kieren.  "At this rate."

"He's already done that," says Shirley, peering in the door.  "Time's up, love.  You should rest."

"Aw, but _Mum_!" Amy protests, but Simon suspects she's secretly grateful.  "Do I really have to?"

"One last thing, though," Philip says, getting to his feet.  He's got an old-fashioned camera in hand, one of those jobs from the late eighties to early nineties that takes Polaroids.  "Amy wanted me to get a picture of you lot while—"  He pauses, glancing apologetically at Kieren.  " _Um_."

"No, I know," Kieren says, and climbs up on the bed beside Amy.  "She's got plenty of her and Simon from before, but not one with me.  It's okay, really," he adds, beckoning to Simon.

Simon makes his way around to the opposite side of the bed, brushing past Philip while he heads to the foot of it, and sits down beside Amy.  Kieren already has an arm thrown across Amy's shoulders, so Simon does the same.  Amy, ever the consummate show-person, takes each of their free hands in one of hers.  When she twines their fingers, Simon squeezes back. 

"Say _sheep's brains_!" shrieks Amy, and every one of them cracks up, even Philip.

 

 

 

*

 

 

Kieren feels thoroughly exhausted when they get home, never mind that Simon's carrying the rucksack and all _he's_ responsible for is the handful of silly (and one or two serious) Polaroids.  Amy had seen to it that Philip had tacked a few above her bed.  Shirley hadn't been happy about damage to the wall, but Amy had argued she's a dab hand at DIY and will fix it for her later.

"Coming home to an empty house would've been too good to be true," says Simon, and Kieren looks up, stopping dead in his tracks.  It's not his worst nightmare, but _still_.  "Hello there."

Jem pushes away from the wall and kicks the overloaded laundry basket at her feet.  It's got a ton of Kieren's books in it, plus random crap from elsewhere around his bedroom.  "I didn't touch any of your drawings, don't worry," she says.  "I'll let you take those down tomorrow yourself."

"Tomorrow?" Kieren echoes.  "Er, _no_.  We're having a day in tomorrow.  It's New Year's Eve."

"Exactly," Jem says, coming down the steps, and she doesn't stop till she's right in front of him.  "It's New Year's Eve," she continues, poking him in the chest, "and you lot are cordially invited."

"Cordially invited to what?" Simon asks, and Kieren's so proud of the snark in Simon's tone he thinks me might burst.  "Your dad breaking out more silly hats and leading the merry pots-and-pans brigade 'round Roarton village limits at midnight?"

"You laugh," Jem says, dragging her finger away from Kieren's chest, pinning it to Simon's instead, "but if I've got to suffer, then so have you.  Be there at ten for brunch.  That's my boys."

They stand gawping at each other while she strolls right on between them and down the lane.

"Please don't tell me your family does this every year," says Simon, sounding rather crushed.

"I could tell you that," sighs Kieren, pressing up against Simon so he has an excuse to kiss him and make a show of tugging the bungalow keys out of his back pocket, "but I'd be lying."

"Oi, not _again_!" Dean shouts from across the street.  "Ain't you two got nothin' better to do?"

"I could ask the same of you, mate," Kieren shouts back.  "Happy fucking New Year, yeah?"

"Can we get inside before I go smash his face in?" Simon asks.  "I'm only half joking, Kier."

Kieren dashes up the stairs and unlocks the door, leaving Simon to wrestle both the laundry basket of stuff and the rucksack inside.  He can hear Simon muttering about the random articles in the basket— _Jesus Christ, what's all this shite?_ —as he kicks his shoes off in the hall and continues into Amy's bedroom.  He strips down and steals another bathrobe, wrapping himself in it, and comes back out barefoot to help Simon peel apart the rucksack.  Simon blinks at him.

"Are you trying to distract me?" he asks.  "Waltzing in here like one of Michelangelo's nudes done up for a cozy-night-at-home burlesque."  He drops several empty Tupperware containers on the floor and kisses Kieren right where they're crouched.  "You're a brat sometimes."

"What do you want to do with all the photographs?" Kieren asks, showing off the fact he's shoved them in one of the bathrobe pockets.  "Tack them up around the bedroom?"

"Not unless you want her nan's ghost havin' a go at us over damage to the walls," says Simon, smirking, and Kieren gives a shout of surprise when he's swung up easily in Simon's arms.

"I don't know, I'd risk it," Kieren says, wrapping both arms around Simon's neck.  "I'm going to be putting up a bunch of drawings anyway.  We should make a day of it."

"That day won't be tomorrow," says Simon, carrying Kieren to their room, kicking the door shut behind them.  "Your family's seen to it.  For the love of God, tell me you're lying about the hats."

"Wish I was," Kieren sighs happily as Simon bends to drop him on the bed, but really just ends up landing on top of Kieren on the mattress with a startled _oof_.  "He'll always find something.  It's got to be a _theme_ , you see.  Christmas is easy, but New Years, _well_.  That's a toss-up."

"If he chooses something in monumentally poor taste, can I opt out for religious reasons?" asks Simon, hopefully, and sits up so he can tug off his shoes and squirm out of his jumper.

"You can run, but you can't hide," Kieren says, lying back, propped on his elbows.  He can't reach Simon's belt from here, but if he stretches his leg and curls his toes, he can catch one of Simon's belt-loops and tug on it.  Simon gives him a bleary, scandalized look.  "He'll find you."

"Remind me how old you technically are?  Twenty-two or something like that?" asks Simon, with mock-reproach, and gets his trousers off in record time.  "Could've fooled me, love."

"Technically," says Kieren, holding open his arms.  "Back in September.  The twenty-ninth."

"Guess I turned . . . " Simon screws up his face, making Kieren laugh, and then kisses him back into the pile of pillows.  "Thirty-two in November?  I wasn't really keeping track.  Stuff to do."

"What day?" asks Kieren, softly, stroking Simon's smooth cheek, wondering how long it'll be before he needs to shave.  "I've just realized we didn't even know each other's birthdays."

"The first," sighs Simon, closing his eyes as he leans into the touch.  "Amy bought a cake even though we couldn't eat it.  She has funny ideas about birthdays.  Thinks they mean something."

"We share a second birthday, at least," Kieren says.  "The three of us.  That means something."

"I'd have you now, I _swear_ ," Simon murmurs, kissing him again, "but I'm so tired I can't think."

"That's okay," replies Kieren, content to feather his fingers through Simon's hair while Simon rests his head heavily against Kieren's chest.  "I'm tired, too.  That was a shit seduction anyway."

"No, it wasn't," Simon protests, his words slurred.  "You'll do it again, or there'll be hell to pay."

They drift off like that and end up having to shift around when they wake at midnight, shivering, to turn out the lights and crawl under the covers.  Kieren promises he'll do it as often Simon wants, to which Simon asks what on earth he's on about.  He's asleep before Kieren can answer.

The next time they're conscious, it's because Kieren forgot to mute his mobile and his Jem-specific ring-tone can, indeed, wake the dead.  Kieren answers with an inarticulate grunt.

"No _hello,_ even?  Just them funny noises?" Jem asks.  "You sure you aren't goin' rabid?"

"Would you _please_ be a normal person for just two seconds?" Kieren mutters.  "What's wrong?"

"It's almost nine forty-five and you haven't turned up yet, that's what," says Jem, and hangs up.

After a rushed shower, Kieren's injection, and a mad scramble to get dressed, they reach the Walker house around twenty minutes after ten.  When they walk in, Jem's giving them a told-you-so smirk from the sofa, where she's sat wearing a bobbing-antennae headband.

"Jesus _Christ_ , Dad," Kieren complains as Steve comes over with a set for each of them.  "What'd you do, take absolute leave of your senses this time?  What are we?  Butterflies?  _Aliens_?"

"Come now, who said anything about stuff like that?" Steve asks, adjusting Simon's headband for him.  "We're just ourselves, Walkers and Monroe, havin' a bit of fun.  Isn't that right, Jem?"

"Woohoo," she says, reaching up to twirl one of her antennae like a noisemaker.  "Loads."

"How much longer have I got to keep this mess of your dad's in the oven?" shouts their mother from the kitchen, shrilly.  "Jem, be a love and come out here, won't you, help me serve it up?"

"That's all right," says Simon, loudly, making a beeline for the dining room and points beyond.  "I'll give you a hand, Sue.  Won't be a moment, just got to get this bloody . . . fire hazard . . . "  Steve looks scandalized as Simon's antennae end up on the dining-room floor, but Kieren and Jem can't stop laughing. 

The meal, at least, doesn't displease anyone; it's a breakfast casserole made with cheese, turkey sausage, spinach, and a sliced-up baguette.  Kieren eats more of what's on his plate than he thinks he should, which earns him raised eyebrows all around the table.  Jem accuses him of trying to make himself sick so they can leave, but the truth is, he actually feels something approaching hungry.  He gulps down the remainder of his tea and doesn't respond to her.

That afternoon, they discover Simon isn't terribly fond of board games.  Kieren wipes the floor with all of them at Dixit, and Simon, in spite of the fact he's whinging at every opportunity, turns a _brutal_ profit during a three-hour session of Monopoly.  At that point, Sue scurries off to check the ham in the oven, leaving Jem and Steve to argue over what bottle of wine to open.

"Drinking's probably a bad idea, isn't it?" Kieren asks Simon in a whisper.  "Thing is, I think I might just _want_ some.  I haven't been ill.  The worst that happens is I cough it up, and I won't even get drunk."  He scoots closer to Simon on the sofa.  "I don't want any if you haven't got plans to partake," he admits.  "That _wouldn't_ speak highly of my boyfriend skills."

Simon shrugs, turning Kieren's hand over between his own before chivalrously kissing it.  "Truth be told, I can't remember the last time I had a drink," he muses.  "I'll share a glass with you."

Unfortunately, Jem's taste in wine wins, and Jem's taste in wine is _shit_.  They don't finish their glass, so Jem downs it on top of the glass she's already had.  Steve warns her she ought not to overdo it and that it'll be an hour at least till the ham's done, at which point she pulls a snit and goes upstairs with the rest of the bottle in tow.  Kieren tries to follow her, but Simon stays him.

"Let her get it out of her system," says Simon.  "It'll do her good to see where you've been."

"Are you kidding?" Kieren asks, but he remains where he is.  "She and her friends get trollied on the cheap stuff for fun.  I doubt retching six-quid Sauvignon Blanc is going to realign her universe any time soon.  No offense, Dad," he says, "but why'd you let her pick it?"

"Why don't _you_ make the Save 'n' Sop run next time?" Steve asks, antennae bobbing as he sorts the Monopoly money back into neat piles.  "See how you like it when we turn up our noses."

"I won't be going to Save 'n' Shop," Kieren says, grinning at Simon.  "I'll be going to London, and then to Paris.  Germany will _have_ to come next, because all the good stuff's Mosel Valley."

"Those are big plans, Kier," Sue calls from the kitchen, "but I'm glad to hear they’re on track!"

"I hope Simon's going," says Steve, both game-boxes under his arm.  "Keep you out of trouble."

"I don't think we'll make it anywhere till summer next year at the earliest," says Simon, and doesn't he just sound _responsible_.  "There's the paperwork trouble, passports and such."

"They'll have to sort it out," says Jem, hanging surreptitiously over the banister.  "There'll be mutiny again if they don't.  They're only just cleanin' up Norfolk.  Sent inspectors, even."

"It's about time," says Simon.  "Holding-cell conditions at the surgery alone were appalling."

"I don't remember conditions at the Treatment Centre being so poor I couldn't have borne staying a bit longer," admits Kieren, tentatively, "but know now I never saw the, _um_ , dodgy parts."

"They're worse than you can imagine," says Simon, without hesitation; Kieren is only surprised because he's speaking so freely, whereas Steve and Jem are outright _surprised_.  "They'd barely finished converting that thing, I don't know what it was, an old prison maybe, a warehouse, a power plant, what do I know, when they hauled the first of us in.  And I _was_ one of the first."

Kieren stares at his hands, uneasy at his father's silence, but Steve finally says, with a stiff nod, "I'm sorry.  Sorry you had to go through that, Simon, and sorry I almost sent you back, son."

"Accepted," Kieren says.   "It wasn't your fault, at least not at first.  Just don't . . . be _deluded_ again, okay?  I was for a long time, too.  Don't believe everything.  That's the lesson here."

"This is depressing," Simon sighs, "and, therefore, the last path I'd like us on for the occasion at hand.  Who's amenable to getting their arse kicked at that card-game Jem's been talking up?"

They only get through a handful of rounds, because Sue has to come in and break up the shouting when Kieren and Jem get into a feedback-loop of inadvertently (and then _purposefully_ )offending each other with their plays.  Steve seems disappointed, but he understands why Jem's expansion-packs need pulling out of circulation.  Dinner's ready, so back to the table they go.

Simon clears his throat, says Grace without invitation.  Jem pulls faces at Kieren the whole time.

Conversation while they eat remains civil because Sue controls the subject matter with an iron fist.  Kieren's afraid that her innocuous-seeming questions about Simon's family life might prove a sore point, but he has nothing but the best memories of his grandparents, so that's a start.

"It's raining," Jem announces cheerfully once they've all finished and begun to clear the table.  "Guess that means there'll be none of your party poppers out on the lawn, Dad.  Such a pity."

"It might clear up," says Steve, stubbornly.  "You never know.  If not, we'll have 'em in here."

Kieren feels full and sleepy from all he's eaten as he curls up in the corner of the sofa, content to leave Simon and his mum in the kitchen.  Their voices weave in and out of his consciousness, a steady hum behind the fractious bickering between Jem and his father.  He dozes; at some point, Simon comes in and sits down beside him, gathering him close.  There's more chatter and the sound of the telly and _this_ : the warm, steady rise and fall of Simon's chest. _I could be happy even if nothing else changes_ , Kieren thinks.  _I could live and be content._

"Up, lazy gits!" Jem whispers, her voice hushed at close range, and Kieren has no idea how much later it's gotten except the lights are low and the three of them are the only ones left in the living room.  It's dark beyond the curtains, and Simon stretches with the irritation of a man who hasn't suffered a crick in his neck so acutely for ages.  "Mum and Dad turned in, let's get _out_!"

"Out _where_ , Jem?" asks Kieren, getting unsteadily to his feet.  "And what time is it, anyway?"

"It's about eleven forty-six," Jem replies, jamming her feet in her boots, and Kieren notices she's got on her plain winter coat and a paisley bandanna.  "To the Legion, to the bus stop, _anywhere_."

"I doubt the Legion will want the likes of us," says Simon, acerbically, but he's putting on his coat, so Kieren feels press-ganged into this effort, whatever it is.  "We're too sober."

"Then all I'm askin' is some good old-fashioned fresh air," Jem says, fetching Kieren's long-untouched winter coat from the cupboard, and tosses it at him.  "Besides, we've got dad's noisemakers.  Won't he be _right_ fussed if we use them to wake him up?  It'll be funny."

Kieren can't argue, so he puts on his coat and follows them outside.  He suspects Simon is onboard because it's appropriate comeuppance in return for the ridiculous headgear.  The rain has stopped, and the yard glitters, a myriad frozen blades of grass.  Kieren stamps at the ground, the satisfying crunch of it, and stares at the sky.  He feels cold, invigorated, and can see his breath.

Simon steps up beside him, peering over the hedge, and offers Kieren the opposite end of the party popper Jem's given him.  "Only a few minutes left," he says.  "Let's get this over with."

Kieren feels a sudden, delighted contrariness.  He takes hold and yanks as hard as he can, just as startled as Simon when the cracker explodes, and already on his way to streaming tears  of laughter when Jem, furious, marches over with hands on hips.

"Oh, there you go, doin' it wrong," she hisses, shaking her own popper at him.  "Spoil my fun!"

"No, _this_ is spoiling your fun," Kieren says, and yanks the opposite end before she can react.

The first strike of the church-bell is lost beneath Jem's indignant shriek, but Simon's laughter, even though he's muffling it with both hands, doesn't quite drown the tolling out.  Jem launches herself at Kieren, and he catches her around the waist so she has no choice but to haul them both down.  Kieren's flat on his back, staring at the new moon, when Jem's hand plants hard on his chest.

"Oh God, Kier," she whispers, framed by black sky and chaotic halo of stars.  "Oh my _God_."

Simon, wide-eyed as he looms over them, kneels and reverently covers Jem's hand with his.


End file.
